Quotes
From Summa Bergania
Atheism
What we all dread most is a maze with no center. That is why atheism is only a nightmare.
—G. K. Chesterton, The Head of Caesar
Certainty
Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
—Will Durant (attributed)
This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées
It is not certain that everything is uncertain.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées
Civilization
The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when a man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street, or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose, let me read a time-table, with tears of pride.
—G. K. Chesterton
Epistemology
It is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if any one maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées
It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.
—John B.S. Haldane, “When I Am Dead”, Possible Worlds: And Other Essays
Mechanism, like all material systems, breaks down at the problem of knowledge. If thought is the undesigned and irrelevant product of cerebral motions, what reason have we to trust it?
—C.S. Lewis (Essay titled "Evil and God" contained in the collection God in the Dock)
Free Will
To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For he who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Epictetus goes much further when he asks: Why do we not lose our temper if someone tells us that we have a headache, while we do lose it if someone says there is anything wrong with our arguments or our choice?
—Blaise Pascal Pensées
You may say, if you like, that the man is free to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive and important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to raise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank you" for the mustard.
—G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy
God
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
—Philippians 2 (NRSV)
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
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God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
—1 John 4 (NRSV)
Love, reign o'er me
—Pete Townshend
‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’ This phrase ‘Yet once more’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
...
Our God is a consuming fire.
—Hebrews 12 (NRSV)
Nothing is inexorable but Love. Love that bends to prayer is imperfect and poor. Nor is it then the love that bends, but an alloy of love. Love does not grant a favor unwillingly; still less does it answer a prayer to the wrong or hurt of him who prays. Love is one, and Love is changeless.
For Love loves unto purity. Love only sees the absolute potential loveliness of whatever it beholds. Wherever an object’s loveliness is incomplete, Love spends itself to make the object more lovely... so that it may love it more. Love strives for perfection... through perfecting the object, Love itself becomes more perfect in the object.
It was Love that first created humanity... so even human love (in proportion to its divinity) will go on creating the beautiful for its own outpouring. There is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved, and love is ever climbing towards the consummation when such shall be the universe. Imperishable. Divine.
Therefore all that is not lovely or beautiful in the beloved must be destroyed.
And our God is a consuming fire.
—George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons, First Series, The Consuming Fire, 1867, translated)
Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"
—Luke 15 (NRSV)
Gospels
The tone and morality of this story are not those of any Jewish authors, and the gospel indeed contains characters so great, so striking, so entirely inimitable, that their invention would be more astonishing than their hero.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.
—Albert Einstein Viereck interview, 1929
Heaven
To hope for all souls is imperative, and it is quite tenable that their salvation is inevitable.
—G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy
No, there is no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it—no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather.
—George MacDonald
Industry
Never a day without a line. (Nulla dies sine linea)
—Apelles (ancient Greek artist, the saying is related to us by Pliny)
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
—T. S. Eliot (Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton)
Influence
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Inerrancy
About this book of the Revelation of John, I leave everyone free to hold his own opinions. I would not have anyone bound to my opinion or judgment. I say what I feel. I miss more than one thing in this book, and it makes me consider it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic... I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it.
—Martin Luther Preface to the Revelation of St. John (1522)
My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book [Revelations]. For me this is reason enough not to think highly of it: Christ is neither taught nor known in it. But to teach Christ, this is the thing which an apostle is bound above all else to do; as Christ says in Acts 1, "You shall be my witnesses." Therefore I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.
—Martin Luther Preface to the Revelation of St. John (1522)
On my view one must apply something of the same sort of explanation to, say, the atrocities (and treacheries) of Joshua. I see the grave danger we run by doing so; but the dangers of believing in a God whom we cannot but regard as evil, and then, in mere terrified flattery calling Him 'good' and worshiping Him, is still greater danger. The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two. Indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible.
To this some will reply 'ah, but we are fallen and don't recognize good when we see it.' But God Himself does not say that we are as fallen at all that. He constantly, in Scripture, appeals to our conscience: 'Why do ye not of yourselves judge what is right?' -- 'What fault hath my people found in me?' And so on.
—C. S. Lewis Letter to John Beversluis (July 3, 1963)
But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays the claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save as leading to Him.
—George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons, First Series, The Consuming Fire, 1867)
It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him.
—C. S. Lewis Letters of C. S. Lewis
The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not "the Word of God" in the sense that every passage in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God.
—C. S. Lewis
We shall know one day just how near we come in the New Testament to the very words of the Lord. That we have them with a difference, I cannot doubt. For one thing, I do not believe he spoke in Greek. He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and would speak their natural language, not that which, at best, they knew in secondary fashion. That the thoughts of God would come out of the heart of Jesus in anything but the mother-tongue of the simple men to whom he spoke, I cannot think. He may perhaps have spoken to the Jews of Jerusalem in Greek, for they were less simple; but at present I do not see ground to believe he did...
God has not cared that we should anywhere have assurance of his very words; and that not merely, perhaps, because of the tendency in his children to word-worship, false logic, and corruption of the truth, but because he would not have them oppressed by words, seeing that words, being human, therefore but partially capable, could not absolutely contain or express what the Lord meant, and that even he must depend for being understood upon the spirit of his disciple. Seeing it could not give life, the letter should not be throned with power to kill; it should be but the handmaid to open the door of the truth to the mind that was of the truth.
—George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons, Third Series, The Knowing of the Son, 1889)
I have been suspected of being what is called a Fundamentalist. That is because I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground that it includes the miraculous. Some people find the miraculous so hard to believe that they cannot imagine any reason for my acceptance of it other than a prior belief that every sentence of the Old Testament has historical or scientific truth. But this I do not hold, any more than St. Jerome did when he said that Moses described Creation "after the manner of a popular poet" (as we should say, mythically) or than Calvin did when he doubted whether the story of Job were history or fiction.
—C. S. Lewis Reflections on the Psalms
Both the serpent and the fig were probably phallic symbols; behind the myth is the thought that sex and knowledge destroy innocence and happiness, and are the origin of evil; we shall find this same idea at the end of the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes as here at the beginning.
—Will Durant (Our Oriental Heritage, chapter 12, 1935)
To ask whether these stories are true or false, whether they "really happened," would be to put a trivial and superficial question; their substance, of course, is not the tales they tell but the judgments they convey. Meanwhile, it would be unwise not to enjoy their disarming simplicity, and the vivid swiftness of their narratives.
—Will Durant, commenting on the stories of the garden of Eden and Noah (Our Oriental Heritage, chapter 12, 1935)
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]
—St. Augustine, "De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim" (The Literal Meaning of Genesis) Book 12 (excerpt)
Either this [John’s Gospel] is reportage – though it may no doubt contain errors – pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic, narrative.
—C. S. Lewis
Islam
But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse.
—Voltaire (Letter to Frederick II)
Logic
The only way absolutes can be ruled out is by invoking one.
—"SteveB" (comment from the uncommondescent blog)
Mammon
But the rich man then began to scratch his head and it [the saying] pleased him not. And the Lord said to him: How canst thou say, I have fulfilled the law and the prophets? For it stands written in the law: Love thy neighbor as thyself; and behold, many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are begrimed with dirt and die of hunger and thy house is full of many good things and nothing at all comes forth from it to them!
—Gospel of the Nazaraens (early 2nd century); embellishment in the story of the rich young ruler
Of course, a person doesn't have to lose everything to acquire spiritual wealth. But one does need to understand that material possessions and status don't constitute real well-being. They don't constitute real security, either. These come from God alone.
—Author Unknown, 'To Be Really Rich' from 'The Christian Science Monitor'
I think that a person who is attached to riches, who lives with the worry of riches, is actually very poor. However, if such a person puts her money at the service of others, then she is rich, very rich.
—Mother Teresa, 'Mother Teresa: No Greater Love'
Nationalism
Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.
—Albert Einstein Viereck interview, 1929
'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'.
—G. K. Chesterton A Defence of Patriotism
Oratory
The most effective fact in oratory is an unexpected change in voice.
—G. K. Chesterton
Patience
Ceremony forces a person to slow down, and as many of us live at a frenzied pace, encountering monastic prayer, or a traditional monastic meal--eaten in silence while a passage from scripture or a religious book is read aloud--can feel like skidding to a halt.
—Kathleen Norris, 'The Cloister Walk'
Perspective
An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
—G. K. Chesterton
Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.
—Blaise Pascal Pensées
Politics
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
—Groucho Marx
Meet the new boss... same as the old boss.
—Pete Townshend Won't Get Fooled Again
It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellow men.
—George MacDonald
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.
—G. K. Chesterton Illustrated London News
What luck for the rulers that men do not think.
—Adolf Hitler
Democracy in effect is an aristocracy of orators.
—John Locke
In the kingdom the multiplication of prohibitions increases the poverty of the people. The more display there is of legislation, the more thieves and robbers there are.
—Lao Tzu
All government is an ugly necessity.
—G. K. Chesterton A Short History of England
All political power is at best a necessary evil: but it is least evil when its sanctions are modest and commonplace, when it claims no more than to be useful or convenient and sets itself strictly limited objectives.
—C. S. Lewis Lillies that Fester
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
—Plato The Republic
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.
—Thomas Reed
The best argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter.
—Winston Churchill
All politics is local.
—Tip O’Neill
What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people.
—G. K. Chesterton Heretics
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
—Robert Heinlein
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics, is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
—Plato
When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists.
...
If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy
...
The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, "Amazing we did it, all by ourselves!"
-Lao Tzu (17)
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron... Is there no other way the world may live?
—Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, The Chance for Peace April 16, 1953
Pride
And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely.
—G. K. Chesterton
A man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility.
—C. S. Lewis
A humble man is not disturbed by praise. Since he is no longer concerned with himself, and since he knows where the good that is in him comes from, he does not refuse praise, because it belongs to the God he loves, and in receiving it he keeps nothing for himself but gives it all, with great joy, to his God.
—Thomas Merton, 'Seeds of Contemplation'
Priorities
It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night.
—Martin Luther, from "A Simple Way to Pray"
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
—Henry David Thoreau
Religion
The less reasonable a cult is, the more men seek to establish it by force.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Surrender
Three prayers for three different kinds of souls: The First Soul prays: "I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot." The Second Soul prays: "Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break." And the Third Soul prays: "Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!"
—Nikos Kazantzakis (Report to Greco)
Trust
To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.
—George MacDonald The Marquis of Lossie, 1877
Wisdom
Legalists never understand people of grace.
—Chuck Swindoll "Getting Through the Tough Stuff" - 'Misunderstanding'
Christians and camels receive their burdens kneeling.
—Ambrose Bierce
Blind is the bookless man.
—Icelandic Proverb
Witness
Preach the Gospel always; and when necessary, use words.
—Attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi
He gives most who gives with joy.
—Mother Teresa, 'My Life for the Poor'
The best way to show our gratitude to God and the people is to accept everything with joy.
—Mother Teresa, 'My Life for the Poor'
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God... go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body....
—Walt Whitman (Preface to Leaves of Grass)
Women
To find a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends.
—Benjamin Franklin
Quotes used in email signatures
A Christian told me, "I cannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and God does not expect it."
It would be more honest if he had said, "I do not want to be perfect: I am content to be saved." Such as he do not care for being perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, but merely for being what they call 'saved'.
—George MacDonald (Unspoken Sermons II, paraphrased) [12/2/06 - 4/15/09]
"I wish I had never been born," she said. "What are we born for?"
"For infinite happiness," said the Spirit. "You can step out into it at any moment..."
—C. S. Lewis (The Great Divorce) [11/3/03 - 12/2/06]
Do you see someone who is hasty in speech? There is more hope for a fool than for anyone like that.
—Solomon [9/25/03 - 11/3/03]
"I do not have to think, I have plenty of meat."
—The response from an Eskimo when asked "Of what are you thinking?" [8/5/03 - 9/25/03]
Better is one handful with peace, than two handfuls with strife.
—Solomon (Ecclesiastes 4, paraphrased) [6/22/03 - 8/5/03]
Be agreeable to everyone, but develop further friendship with wise people.
—Confucius [5/30/03 - 6/22/03]
Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.
—Martin Luther [4/26/03 - 5/30/03]
One who gives an honest answer gives a kiss on the lips.
—Solomon [3/16/03 - 4/26/03]
For those who try to find joy in things outside themselves easily vanish away into emptiness. They waste themselves on the temporal pleasures of the visible world. Their minds are starved and they nibble at empty shadows.
—St. Augustine [2/17/03 - 3/16/03]
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.
—Lao Tzu [1/13/03 - 2/17/03]
We become what we behold... We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.
—Marshall McLuhan [12/16/02 - 1/13/03]
Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to happen, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well.
—Epictetus [11/17/02 - 12/16/02]
Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made.
—Isaiah [10/18/02 - 11/13/02]
And the seed sown among the thorns represents the people who hear the message and go on their way, and with the worries and riches and pleasures of living, the life is choked out of them, and in the end they produce nothing.
—Jesus (Luke 6, paraphrased) [9/23/02 - 10/16/02]
Therefore the wise person acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything.
—Lao Tzu [8/14/02 - 9/20/02]
A rebuke strikes deeper into a discerning person than a hundred blows into a fool.
—Solomon [4/9/02 - 8/13/02]
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion.
—Solomon [11/18/01 - 3/21/02]
Truth, you see, can never be refuted.
—Socrates [9/19/01 - 10/15/01]
Rebuke a fool and you make an enemy; rebuke a wise man and you make a friend.
—Solomon [8/18/00 - 2/23/01]
If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose my beliefs are true ...and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.
—J. B. S. Haldane (Possible Worlds) [7/12/00 - 7/21/00]
Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, cities will have no rest from evils, nor will the human race.
—Socrates (Republic V--473c) [1/25/00 - 6/5/00]
There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.
—Socrates [12/8/99 - 1/19/00]
I prefer nothing unless it is true.
—Socrates [8/11/98 - 11/23/99]
Enlighten the people generally... most of all, in matters of government and religion; and that the diffusion of knowledge among the people is to be the instrument by which it is effected.
—Thomas Jefferson [10/15/97 - 10/28/97]
I know not how the third World War will be fought, but the fourth will be with sticks and stones.
—Albert Einstein [8/27/97]
If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved.
—C. S. Lewis [8/15/97]
